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RDM through a UK lens - New 
Roles for Librarians? 
Stuart Macdonald 
Research Data Management Service Coordinator 
Research & Library Services 
University of Edinburgh 
Email: 
stuart.macdonald@ed.ac.uk 
Towards linked science – Open Data and DataCite Estonia, University 
of Tartu, 23 October, 2014
Outline 
 Background 
 Traditional Data Library Services 
 RDM Programme at University of Edinburgh 
 Drivers: Funders & Jisc 
 Data Services and initiatives at University of 
Edinburgh
Background 
 EDINA and University Data Library (EDL) together are a division 
within Information Services (IS) of the University of Edinburgh. 
 EDINA is a Jisc-designated national centre for digital expertise & 
online service delivery 
 The Data Library assists Edinburgh University users in the discovery, 
access, use and management of research datasets. 
 Research & Library Services, part of Library and University Collections 
coordinate the RDM Programme at Edinburgh
‘Traditional’ Data Library 
Services
What is a data library? 
A data library refers to the services that foster use of collections 
of numeric and/or geospatial data sets for secondary use in 
research. 
A data library is normally part of a larger institution (academic, 
scientific, medical, governmental, etc.) established to serve the 
data users of that organisation. 
The data tends to be housed local ly or via subscription and 
accessed through various means (SFTP, CD-/DVD-ROMs or 
server download). 
A data library may also maintain subscriptions to licensed data 
resources.
Data Library: History 
 Established out of the Program Library Unit in early 
1980s to provide access to data on mainframes, e.g. 
1981 population census data. Was part of EUCS, 
now Information Services 
 Became a Jisc national data centre as EDINA in 
1993 
 Data Library continues University remit 
 celebrated 30th anniversary in 2013
Edinburgh University Data Library
Data Library Consultancy 
• finding… 
• accessing … 
• using … 
• managing … 
Primarily supporting research in the social sciences but 
not exclusively so. 
Building relationships with researchers via: 
• Postgraduate teaching activities, 
• Research support projects, 
• IS Skills workshops, 
• Research Data Management training 
• Through traditional reference interviews.
Data Library Resources: 
• Large-scale Government survey 
survey data 
• Country and regional level time-time- 
series data 
• Population and Agricultural 
Census data 
• Financial and market data 
• Geospatial data 
• Resources for teaching
Data service delivery models 
3 ‘traditional’ Data Libraries in the UK: Edinburgh University Data 
Library; London School of Economics; Oxford University 
In Europe, model primarily is of National Data Archives in the 
Social Sciences (CESSDA) 
In the US, data libraries at all research-intensive universities, some 
in research centres (e.g. Cornell), some in libraries (John Hopkins, 
Michigan) – broadening out to be RDM services 
In Canada, data libraries are predominantly situated in University 
Libraries, manned mainly by librarians
Data Liberation Initiative (DLI) 
 Program between Statistics Canada and Canadian 
Universities to provide affordable access to public 
data files for researchers 
 Subscription based 
 Housed in academic libraries 
 Due campus-wide coverage 
 Before 1996 – 9 Universities with Data Library facilities 
 1996 - 50 became members within the 1st year 
 2011 - 75 Universities with data service capability (out of a 
total of 98)
University of Edinburgh RDM 
Programme
RDM Services and Support 
RDM Roadmap – sets out a high-level programme of RDM 
infrastructure, service and support deliverables to implement 
Edinburgh’s RDM Policy 
3 phases: August 2012 – May 2015 
 Services already in place: 
 Data management planning (F-2-F, DMPonline) 
 Active working file space = DataStore 
 Data publication repository = DataShare 
 Services in development: 
 Long term data archive = DataVault 
 Data Asset Register (DAR) 
 RDM support: Awareness raising, training & consultancy
Data Library & RDM 
 Research data management training: 
 Research Data MANTRA 
 Institutional data repository provision 
 Edinburgh Datashare 
 Assistance with deposit in national archives to comply 
with funder requirements 
 Assistance with Data Management Plans (DMPs)
Research Data MANTRA 
Open online course aimed at 
researchers managing digital 
data as part of the research 
process 
Units map on the research data 
lifecycle 
• PLUS software-specific data handling practicals 
• Open online, self-paced course for researchers 
• RDM DIY Training Kit for Librarians 
• CC licences
Edinburgh DataShare 
Edinburgh DataShare is an 
online multi-disciplinary data 
repository for Edinburgh 
researchers who want to 
publish and openly share 
their data . 
Citation 
ODC Attribution licences 
Persistent Identifers 
OAI-PMH
Institutional RDM Infrastructure 
Drivers: Funders & Jisc
DRIVERS
Jisc-funded MRD Programmes (UK) 
 Jisc is ‘a registered charity [.. that ..] champions the use of digital 
technologies in UK education and research.’ It is funded by UK HE and FE 
funding bodies (and from 2014-15 membership subscription) 
 Strand 1 Projects (Oct. 2009 – Sept. 2011): 
 Piloting RDM infrastructures within institutions 
 Developing RDM Training materials 
 Strand 2 Projects (Oct. 2011 – Jul. 2013: 
 To help universities develop RDM support infrastructure & build capacity 
 To customize DCC’s DMP Online tool for institutional use 
 Strand 2 activities were complemented by work to develop disciplinary-focused 
RDM training materials for liaison librarians and research officers etc
DCC RDM 2014 Survey 
 National picture of institutional progress in RDM (post- Jisc 
MRD) 
 Understand barriers, perceived gaps in RDM support 
 Pro-VC’s for Research & Heads of Library, IT, Research Support & 
Commercialisation 
 Institutions with at least 10% income from research 
 87 responses from 61 institutions (incl. all 24 Russell Group* 
institutions) 
* The Russell Group is an association of 24 British public research universities whose objective is to lead the research 
efforts of the UK. They receive approximately two-thirds of all university research grant and contract income in the 
United Kingdom.
Funding & staffing 
• c. 90% of institutions used internal funding for new appointments in 
RDM, for training and development of researchers and support 
staff, and for infrastructure. 
• Almost half of institutions (48%) expect that 'most' staffing of RDM 
roles in future will be resourced by restructuring existing roles 
• Overall provision for RDM is currently 4.4 FTE on average 
• 4.7 FTE being the average in Russell Group institutions and 2.6FTE 
the average in other target group institutions. 
• Library roles are prevalent, supporting 1 fixed term and 1 
permanent staff member on average.
• RDM staffing is expected to double to 9.5 FTE in Russell Group 
institutions in next year, split roughly equally between Library, IT and 
Research Office staff. 
• For others institutions in target group RDM staffing is expected to rise 
only slightly to 3 FTE 
• Overall, the picture that emerged is of substantial investment by 
institutions in staff and infrastructure for RDM, but much of it 
concentrated In Russell Group institutions. 
• There is a strong appetite for collaborative solutions through regional 
consortia of institutions
How does University of Edinburgh measure 
up? 
RDM Programme: 
Funded internally (c. 1.5 Million Euros) 
75% - infrastructure / storage 
25% - staffing (recurrent for 3 years) 
MANTRA and DataShare – originally Jisc project funding 
Staffing: 
Data Library: 2.5 FTE equivalent core funding + 1.75 FTE from RDM 
Programme (fixed term) 
Research & Library Services: 2 FTE equivalent 
Following RDM training (including training on writing DMPs) the job 
description of all Academic Support Librarians have been restructured 
to incorporate RDM as part of their role.
Data Services and initiatives at 
University of Edinburgh
Administrative Data Research Centre Scotland 
ESRC-funded to provide trusted researchers access to de-identified administrative 
data in a secure environment. Based at the University of Edinburgh 
Digital Curation Centre (DCC) 
A renowned centre of expertise in digital curation with a focus on building capacity, 
capability and skills for RDM across the UK's higher education research community. 
DCC provides expert advice and practical help to anyone in UK higher education and 
research wanting to store, manage, protect and share digital research data 
EDINA – a Jisc-designated national centre of expertise in digital innovation 
and data service delivery
Centre for Doctoral Training in Data 
Science 
 EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Data Science will be 
hosted by the School of Informatics 
 The CDT in Data Science will train a new generation of data 
scientists with the technical skills and interdisciplinary awareness 
necessary to become research leaders in Data Science. 
 Comprising 50 PhDs over five intake years - the first cohort will 
start in the programme in September 2014 
 CDT applications will automatically be considered for the full 1 year 
MSc by Research + 3 year PhD programme.
Aitäh! 
Links 
 Data Library Services: http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/data-library 
 EDINA: http://edina.ac.uk/ 
 IASSIST: http://www.iassistdata.org/ 
 Univ.of Edinburgh RDM Programme: http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/data-management 
 RDM Roadmap: http://edin.ac/1u3sKqy 
 Edinburgh DataShare - http://datashare.is.ed.ac.uk/ 
 MANTRA - http://datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra 
 RDM Guidance: http://tinyurl.com/pq3szvf 
 Jisc Managing Research Data Strand 1: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/mrd.aspx 
 Jisc Managing Research Data Strand 2: http://tinyurl.com/6w6g6qx 
 Final Results from the DCC RDM Survey 2014 - 
https://www.zotero.org/groups/jhu_dms/items/itemKey/BNRG25T3 
 ADRC Scotland - - http://adrn.ac.uk/centres/scotland 
 EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Data Science: http://datascience.inf.ed.ac.uk/ 
 Digital Curation Centre: http://www.dcc.ac.uk/

More Related Content

RDM through a UK lens - New Roles for Librarians?

  • 1. RDM through a UK lens - New Roles for Librarians? Stuart Macdonald Research Data Management Service Coordinator Research & Library Services University of Edinburgh Email: stuart.macdonald@ed.ac.uk Towards linked science – Open Data and DataCite Estonia, University of Tartu, 23 October, 2014
  • 2. Outline  Background  Traditional Data Library Services  RDM Programme at University of Edinburgh  Drivers: Funders & Jisc  Data Services and initiatives at University of Edinburgh
  • 3. Background  EDINA and University Data Library (EDL) together are a division within Information Services (IS) of the University of Edinburgh.  EDINA is a Jisc-designated national centre for digital expertise & online service delivery  The Data Library assists Edinburgh University users in the discovery, access, use and management of research datasets.  Research & Library Services, part of Library and University Collections coordinate the RDM Programme at Edinburgh
  • 5. What is a data library? A data library refers to the services that foster use of collections of numeric and/or geospatial data sets for secondary use in research. A data library is normally part of a larger institution (academic, scientific, medical, governmental, etc.) established to serve the data users of that organisation. The data tends to be housed local ly or via subscription and accessed through various means (SFTP, CD-/DVD-ROMs or server download). A data library may also maintain subscriptions to licensed data resources.
  • 6. Data Library: History  Established out of the Program Library Unit in early 1980s to provide access to data on mainframes, e.g. 1981 population census data. Was part of EUCS, now Information Services  Became a Jisc national data centre as EDINA in 1993  Data Library continues University remit  celebrated 30th anniversary in 2013
  • 8. Data Library Consultancy • finding… • accessing … • using … • managing … Primarily supporting research in the social sciences but not exclusively so. Building relationships with researchers via: • Postgraduate teaching activities, • Research support projects, • IS Skills workshops, • Research Data Management training • Through traditional reference interviews.
  • 9. Data Library Resources: • Large-scale Government survey survey data • Country and regional level time-time- series data • Population and Agricultural Census data • Financial and market data • Geospatial data • Resources for teaching
  • 10. Data service delivery models 3 ‘traditional’ Data Libraries in the UK: Edinburgh University Data Library; London School of Economics; Oxford University In Europe, model primarily is of National Data Archives in the Social Sciences (CESSDA) In the US, data libraries at all research-intensive universities, some in research centres (e.g. Cornell), some in libraries (John Hopkins, Michigan) – broadening out to be RDM services In Canada, data libraries are predominantly situated in University Libraries, manned mainly by librarians
  • 11. Data Liberation Initiative (DLI)  Program between Statistics Canada and Canadian Universities to provide affordable access to public data files for researchers  Subscription based  Housed in academic libraries  Due campus-wide coverage  Before 1996 – 9 Universities with Data Library facilities  1996 - 50 became members within the 1st year  2011 - 75 Universities with data service capability (out of a total of 98)
  • 12. University of Edinburgh RDM Programme
  • 13. RDM Services and Support RDM Roadmap – sets out a high-level programme of RDM infrastructure, service and support deliverables to implement Edinburgh’s RDM Policy 3 phases: August 2012 – May 2015  Services already in place:  Data management planning (F-2-F, DMPonline)  Active working file space = DataStore  Data publication repository = DataShare  Services in development:  Long term data archive = DataVault  Data Asset Register (DAR)  RDM support: Awareness raising, training & consultancy
  • 14. Data Library & RDM  Research data management training:  Research Data MANTRA  Institutional data repository provision  Edinburgh Datashare  Assistance with deposit in national archives to comply with funder requirements  Assistance with Data Management Plans (DMPs)
  • 15. Research Data MANTRA Open online course aimed at researchers managing digital data as part of the research process Units map on the research data lifecycle • PLUS software-specific data handling practicals • Open online, self-paced course for researchers • RDM DIY Training Kit for Librarians • CC licences
  • 16. Edinburgh DataShare Edinburgh DataShare is an online multi-disciplinary data repository for Edinburgh researchers who want to publish and openly share their data . Citation ODC Attribution licences Persistent Identifers OAI-PMH
  • 17. Institutional RDM Infrastructure Drivers: Funders & Jisc
  • 19. Jisc-funded MRD Programmes (UK)  Jisc is ‘a registered charity [.. that ..] champions the use of digital technologies in UK education and research.’ It is funded by UK HE and FE funding bodies (and from 2014-15 membership subscription)  Strand 1 Projects (Oct. 2009 – Sept. 2011):  Piloting RDM infrastructures within institutions  Developing RDM Training materials  Strand 2 Projects (Oct. 2011 – Jul. 2013:  To help universities develop RDM support infrastructure & build capacity  To customize DCC’s DMP Online tool for institutional use  Strand 2 activities were complemented by work to develop disciplinary-focused RDM training materials for liaison librarians and research officers etc
  • 20. DCC RDM 2014 Survey  National picture of institutional progress in RDM (post- Jisc MRD)  Understand barriers, perceived gaps in RDM support  Pro-VC’s for Research & Heads of Library, IT, Research Support & Commercialisation  Institutions with at least 10% income from research  87 responses from 61 institutions (incl. all 24 Russell Group* institutions) * The Russell Group is an association of 24 British public research universities whose objective is to lead the research efforts of the UK. They receive approximately two-thirds of all university research grant and contract income in the United Kingdom.
  • 21. Funding & staffing • c. 90% of institutions used internal funding for new appointments in RDM, for training and development of researchers and support staff, and for infrastructure. • Almost half of institutions (48%) expect that 'most' staffing of RDM roles in future will be resourced by restructuring existing roles • Overall provision for RDM is currently 4.4 FTE on average • 4.7 FTE being the average in Russell Group institutions and 2.6FTE the average in other target group institutions. • Library roles are prevalent, supporting 1 fixed term and 1 permanent staff member on average.
  • 22. • RDM staffing is expected to double to 9.5 FTE in Russell Group institutions in next year, split roughly equally between Library, IT and Research Office staff. • For others institutions in target group RDM staffing is expected to rise only slightly to 3 FTE • Overall, the picture that emerged is of substantial investment by institutions in staff and infrastructure for RDM, but much of it concentrated In Russell Group institutions. • There is a strong appetite for collaborative solutions through regional consortia of institutions
  • 23. How does University of Edinburgh measure up? RDM Programme: Funded internally (c. 1.5 Million Euros) 75% - infrastructure / storage 25% - staffing (recurrent for 3 years) MANTRA and DataShare – originally Jisc project funding Staffing: Data Library: 2.5 FTE equivalent core funding + 1.75 FTE from RDM Programme (fixed term) Research & Library Services: 2 FTE equivalent Following RDM training (including training on writing DMPs) the job description of all Academic Support Librarians have been restructured to incorporate RDM as part of their role.
  • 24. Data Services and initiatives at University of Edinburgh
  • 25. Administrative Data Research Centre Scotland ESRC-funded to provide trusted researchers access to de-identified administrative data in a secure environment. Based at the University of Edinburgh Digital Curation Centre (DCC) A renowned centre of expertise in digital curation with a focus on building capacity, capability and skills for RDM across the UK's higher education research community. DCC provides expert advice and practical help to anyone in UK higher education and research wanting to store, manage, protect and share digital research data EDINA – a Jisc-designated national centre of expertise in digital innovation and data service delivery
  • 26. Centre for Doctoral Training in Data Science  EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Data Science will be hosted by the School of Informatics  The CDT in Data Science will train a new generation of data scientists with the technical skills and interdisciplinary awareness necessary to become research leaders in Data Science.  Comprising 50 PhDs over five intake years - the first cohort will start in the programme in September 2014  CDT applications will automatically be considered for the full 1 year MSc by Research + 3 year PhD programme.
  • 27. Aitäh! Links  Data Library Services: http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/data-library  EDINA: http://edina.ac.uk/  IASSIST: http://www.iassistdata.org/  Univ.of Edinburgh RDM Programme: http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/data-management  RDM Roadmap: http://edin.ac/1u3sKqy  Edinburgh DataShare - http://datashare.is.ed.ac.uk/  MANTRA - http://datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra  RDM Guidance: http://tinyurl.com/pq3szvf  Jisc Managing Research Data Strand 1: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/mrd.aspx  Jisc Managing Research Data Strand 2: http://tinyurl.com/6w6g6qx  Final Results from the DCC RDM Survey 2014 - https://www.zotero.org/groups/jhu_dms/items/itemKey/BNRG25T3  ADRC Scotland - - http://adrn.ac.uk/centres/scotland  EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Data Science: http://datascience.inf.ed.ac.uk/  Digital Curation Centre: http://www.dcc.ac.uk/